


Angleton's checklist of discoveries

by Keenir



Category: The Laundry Files - Charles Stross
Genre: Adventures Of A Gnome Named Gnorm, Agent Carter References, Earth is scary, Gen, Slice of Life, Yuletide 2015, earth is weird
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-07 01:28:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5438426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keenir/pseuds/Keenir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>These are a few of the things that Angleton has learned since he was summoned and locked into a body.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Angleton's checklist of discoveries

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shadowlover](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowlover/gifts).



* * *

_**#2:** Cooties are not real._

* * *

He is a being of higher mathematics and other dimensions. He knows many [civilizations] which have [members] who can enter humans and other intelligences with a single touch. One physical momentary contact, and "WHAM BAM THANK YOU [human]" as humans phrase it.

Initially, Earth is terrifying, and that is a large part of the reason why. Humans carry and transmit diseases to one another; this is known, in this world and in other places. And then Angleton witnesses something both more familiar and disquieting: children displaying knowledge of interdimensional conduit spread:

A child taps another in a park or playground - Angleton has seen both transpire - and whispers "You've got cooties now," upon which point the other child either screams, cries, runs for teacher, or chases down other students to further spread the "cooties."

Sometimes, in those early days, before he had cultivated a public face, people would tap Angleton on the shoulder - and before they could offer sympathies and ask if any of the children were his own (nightmare scenario all its own), the higher-mathematic being jumped a foot or so in startlement.

* * *

* * *

_**#12:** The discovery that "We're from the Government, and we're here to help you" is seen as scarier than anything that goes bump in the dark._

* * *

He had not been in England two full months before a holiday befalls him.  One full of mockery, so far as he can infer, with thousands of crude attempts by humans of all sizes and ages to steal power from nonexistent figments of imagination, by dressing up as them.  (this is before the Christmas Fiasco, which ended with him banned from Tesco for life)

He walks back to his workplace from dealing with [bore bore bore] in a private development, and he is passed by scads and mobs of children.  He still flinches, fearing being infected by them, far more than he fears infecting them.  And at the corner of one block, he stops - as does a small child, a girl, who had come from the other direction.

The little girl looks at him. Doesn't run away screaming. Doesn't call for help from parents or anyone else. Doesn't faint. She giggles.

Angleton looks at her. Isn't sure she understands the local holiday any more than he does, her being in a three-piece suit that nearly counts as five pieces on her. "Are you not taking part in the holiday?" Angleton asks her.  Notes that other children avoid crossing her path; some make simplistic warding-away gestures.

There are suggestions, from what he has seen, that participation in this holiday is voluntary and optional among the subadults of humanity, both the rebelling and nonrebelling ones. Likewise, suggestions that participation among adults is contingent upon them wearing a clothing which links in a way to what their offspring are wearing...and Angleton knows [individuals] for whom what would be mind-killing, such as [she of the myriad progeny].

But for children themselves...

More giggles. "I _am_ wearing my costume, mister. I'm an accountant all ready for tax season."

* * *

* * *

_**#15:** Gravity is weak, but still strong, and yet so weak._

* * *

Angleton knows of dimensions wherein the force of gravity is so weak it is only as observable as the background radiation of the humans' own universe. (he stands accused of attacking or invading several of them, but only destroyed one, and that was an accident - though its refugees are not about to split hairs over it)

Gravity here, upon the Earth, is far stronger here than in them. Yet it has none of the might that gravity has in other dimensions where it is powerful. Earth's universe's gravity cannot even make a coin go through a human hand, even with a magnet on the other side of that very hand.

For a long time, it is Angleton's favorite party trick to do that with coins and hands and magnets, usually refrigerator magnets.   Much to the annoyance of his coworkers.

In hindsight, he wonders if having a "bad party trick" aided in his camouflage as a human.

* * *

* * *

#21: Legends are real. You may or may not be one yourself.

* * *

"Agent Carter, there is nothing down this path that is not old and defunct," Angleton says, trying this latest role - eyewitness - with more gusto than anyone but Bob Howard (in the future on a bad night) would behold and survive.

"Let me be the judge of that," Carter says. "After all, you came out from this path not long ago."

 _Point to you. Observant and with eyes in place. Men and mankind could learn from you. But I will not permit you to learn of the Laundry - it is not a place for anyone to thrive, and though divination is not a specialty of mine, I know you will thrive in a place almost as needed as my Laundry._ "More proof of my point. More importantly," and he could ask what drew her eye to this place, or anything else a normal agent or Laundryman might try, but he would not and did not, as he knew it would backfire, increasing her curiosity about this place. And then the coming of geases upon her. Best to avoid that. "Have you made any progress into learning where that Babbage System lap computer was taken? A remarkable thing, so complex." _So potentially a buffet with broad doors for so many anythings._

"They got away with it...part of it," Agent Carter said. Howard is naturally irked that he is as baffled now as he was with that HYDRA submarine in the wake of Dr. Erskine's death.

Other agents would have taken at least a day to realize it. Carter realized immediately after parting company with him, she'd been drawn off the scent of that Angleton person, distracted by the question of the Babbage System that she'd been pursuing when she had initially ran across his curious self.

And he was gone, with no trace to be found, and the path itself no longer existed.

* * *

* * *

_**#41:**   Life, the universe, and everything else is found in fiction too._

* * *

 Sitting on the couch, Angleton isn't sure how he was talked into babysitting this child beside him.  There may have been a deal struck, or a promise of 'I'll owe you forever' (which humans rarely mean the way it can be interpreted)

"I love this movie," the child says again, offering Angleton the bowl of popcorn, which he politely refuses.

The film is an epic depiction of how a subterranean race - specifically an unlikely individual of that race - ventures up from their burrows to recover a valued object, to prove his worth to himself and others...and befriends and allies with a human member of a police force to accomplish that goal.  _Not_ _implausible,_ Angleton knows, having encountered burrowing intelligences both prior to and since being locked into this husk of a human body.

"Its _gnome_ ," says one character - the cop - onscreen to that member of that subterranean race.  "The _g_ is silent."

The other character replies, " ** _G_** _no its **g** not."_

The child erupts into a tidal bore of giggles.  Angleton thinks he understands the punchline.


End file.
